The following thesis treats the problematic arising from the cultural representation of Latin America in two of the most trendy Latin American Festivals in Italy to-date. The thesis departs from...Show moreThe following thesis treats the problematic arising from the cultural representation of Latin America in two of the most trendy Latin American Festivals in Italy to-date. The thesis departs from the premise that there is a fundamental problem regarding the construction and understanding of Latin American culture and identity. This is fundamentally linked with the continents colonial past and the racial and social constructs that have raised from it. The first festival analyzed is the Milano Latin Festival in which the Peruvian diaspora becomes the central focus of analysis. The second festival is the Festival del Cinema Latino Americano di Trieste in which the cultural film festival industry is questioned as a whole and the role Latin America plays on it. By treating the literature on identity, postcolonialism and representation, the final conclusions attest that festivals approach cultural representation in a defective way. Their main faults rely on a lack of acknowledgement and understanding of the diversity that constitutes each and every Latin American country and the dynamics that exists in these concerning race and class. And in the second case, in that the drive and/or purpose of festivals tend to mold how is that cultures are portrait. There is the necessity of exploring further into the underlying realities of Latin American cultures and treat the problematic and paradoxes these have if one desires to pay justice and respect to the same ones.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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Dutch Antillean writer Boeli van Leeuwen is strikingly absent in the study of Dutch postcolonial literature, despite his status as one of Dutch' most important Caribbean authors. Till this day,...Show moreDutch Antillean writer Boeli van Leeuwen is strikingly absent in the study of Dutch postcolonial literature, despite his status as one of Dutch' most important Caribbean authors. Till this day, only a few articles have been devoted to Van Leeuwen's oeuvre. In this thesis, I aim to formulate an answer to the question: in what way do Van Leeuwen's novels 'Schilden van leem' en 'Het teken van Jona' generate meaning? Why is it that 'plain facts' are insufficient to tackle these works? In my analysis I am proposing six possible readings that account for Van Leeuwen's novels that are overflowing with meaning. By studying their use of intertextuality, allegory, irony, Relation, metafiction and 'Caribbeanness,' I attempt to make the abundance productive that the reader encounters. In my conclusion I will argue that Van Leeuwen is ultimately reflecting on knowledge itself, since his writing constantly redirects the reader, without allowing a singular interpretation. The multiple voices, languages and traditions brought forth resist the monotonous and unambiguous discourse of the referential readings. Van Leeuwens fictional reality ultimately points towards itself and demonstrates the fiction hiding behind so-called plain facts.Show less
Research master thesis | Archaeology (research) (MA/MSc)
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Despite the fact that the PostClassic Mesoamerican codices display a striking amount of similarity, academic studies of the discipline typically separate the Central Mexican and Mixtec manuscripts...Show moreDespite the fact that the PostClassic Mesoamerican codices display a striking amount of similarity, academic studies of the discipline typically separate the Central Mexican and Mixtec manuscripts from those of the Maya, with the Maya receiving an epigraphic approach and the Mexican and Mixtec receiving an art historical approach. Many of these studies implicitly privilege phonetic writing systems, taking an evolutionary view of writing which devalues the pictographic. This privileging of the phonetic speaks to the more extensive devaluation of indigenous beliefs and practices on a wider scale. This thesis seeks to bridge the gap between the art historical and epigraphic by understanding the codices as products of the communities in which they were created, and thus fulfilling culturally-specific needs. Ritualized Discourse in the Mesoamerican Codices: An Inquiry into Epigraphic Practice accomplishes this through two case studies, one of which is based on the representation of the same subject matter, bloodletting, and one of which is based on the representation of the same linguistic practice, difrasismo. The results of the analysis indicate that while on a visual level the codices appear very different, on a phonological level there are many similarities in how they represent linguistic and phonetic elements. The Central Mexican and Maya codices in particular display a high degree of overlap, speaking to their shared scribal traditions. Approaching the codices as inventions designed to fulfill a purpose, interpretations of iconographic and phonetic elements are reached which speak to a pan-Mesoamerican experience of writing and highlight the benefits of alternative traditions of knowledge.Show less
Since, as anthropologists and cultural critics have argued, food and food practices constitute a system of communication that conveys social meaning, food as a cultural and social practice and as a...Show moreSince, as anthropologists and cultural critics have argued, food and food practices constitute a system of communication that conveys social meaning, food as a cultural and social practice and as a literary trope provides insight into society and culture and the identities they produce. If we are what we eat, food is an important means to define and, more specifically, perform our identities. In a globalizing world, in which both people and products constantly travel, food follows migratory flows. When placed in a political, economic, and cultural context food functions as a boundary marker as well as a boundary crosser. This makes food a useful trope in postcolonial and other migrant literature in particular, as these novels explore the effects of migration and cultural encounters on the formation, negotiation, and performance of identities. Placing my reading of Desai’s postcolonial novel The Inheritance of Loss in the theoretical framework of food theories, I will argue that Desai uses food as a metaphorical instrument not only to deconstruct colonial identities, such as that of the Anglophile judge and his friends, and fixed ethnic identities, such as Biju’s, but also to imagine more fluid, multiple, migrant identities, such as Saeed Saeed’s, and to focus attention on unequal power relations and the fluidity of nationhood and national identity.Show less
